Old oil wells pose problem for Pecos County

Published 6:20 pm, Saturday, August 22, 2015

Photo: Tim Fischer

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Old oil wells pose problem for Pecos County

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FORT STOCKTON -- A cluster of old oil test wells have given Pecos County landowners an unusual problem -- old well heads are now spewing an endless flow of water from deep aquifers, turning hardscrabble desert into a chain of small pools and lakes.

But these pools of water aren’t what typically comes to mind at the mention of “lake.” The water that has been spilling out in Pecos County for years gives off a putrid, nauseating smell. Salt and sulfur crystals encase everything the water immediately touches; dead vegetation surround the lakes within a 30-foot radius.

So-called Boehmer Lake, which sits just south of Imperial along Farm-to-Market Road 1053, is one of the larger pools of such water. The lake is continually fed by an orphaned oil well, drilled roughly half-a-century ago by wildcatters.

“When they hit water, they flooded the area and left, and gave the water wells to the landowners and they used to farm with these wells,” said Ty Edwards, Assistant General Manager of the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District, the entity that manages the water quality and pumping of underground freshwater water supplies in Pecos County. “The whole are used to be nothing but farmland, but now that water’s horrible.”

At roughly 50 years old, the artesian wells tap into the brackish San Andres aquifer roughly 2,600 feet below the surface. The water in this aquifer has been measured at 9,000 total dissolved solids, or minerals and salts, (TDS) per milligram of water. Potable drinking water has a TDS rating under 1,000 or below; ocean water is roughly 35,000 TDS.

But the water flowing out of the San Andres aquifer, through the well, and into the lake has a toxic 100,000 TDS. The current assumption for why the San Andres brackish water is coming up in its condition lies in the deteriorating rusty well encasings, which, it is hypothesized, allows the water to wash through salt and oil deposits as it rises, according to Odessa-based hydrologists Gil Van Deventer and Darrell Peckham.

The orphaned well began sprouting water again in about 2002. By about 2005 the water began engulfing a nearby dirt road, and by 2008 the road was completely drowned.

“That used to be all flat wild land out there, and now it’s a friggin’ lake,” Edwards said.

The MPGCD’s fear is how this salt-lake might percolate through the soils and contaminate the freshwater aquifer beneath the surface, from which communities and farmers pump for irrigation and municipal use.

Having yet to be studied, the science behind the salt-lakes and their potential impact to groundwater sources has yet to be pinned down. But Van Deventer hopes to perform that study.

“We want to make a current compilation of information that specifically documents these San Andres wells. Including their locations, status, condition and history of use,” Van Deventer said during a presentation to the MPGCD board earlier this week. “I mean for the last 50 years there is very little known about these wells except for hearsay.”

Preliminary estimates count at least 40 orphaned wells tapping the San Andres aquifer, the obvious ones flow water at the wellhead, others lie more dormant. All pose the risk of creating a sinkhole, which would advance the threat to groundwater contamination.

Satellite imagery of Boehmer Lake shows it to have a smooth circular shape, which hydrologists believe is a sign of an incipient sinkhole.

“The fact that it’s a circle means that it could be a developing sinkhole underneath,” said Peckham, who works for Odessa-based Water Quest. “It won’t be a catastrophic collapse, but it’s going to be a slow sink.”

Such a “slow sink” happened after 2009 when a free flowing well was plugged by the MPGCD and Texas Department of Transportation due to its proximity to FM 1053. The project cost the state department about $1 million, according to Edwards, and soon after the ground began to sink, taking the highway with it.

“They plugged it, but they couldn’t get the plug down deep enough, and they were told it was OK because it would protect the (useable groundwater),” Peckham said. The well was only plugged about 200 feet down-beneath the freshwater aquifer yet far from the full 2,600-foot depth of the well.

“This water can move, and if it can migrate into another formation, or if it can make it up around the plug, it could dissolve layers beneath it and create a sinkhole,” Peckham said.

The highway has since been rebuilt, but a large crater remains just along the right-of-way.

“It’s kind of hard to say how many are out there because nobody knows, that’s why I want to do this,” Van Deventer said before the groundwater board. “They have the potential for sinkhole development, it’s happened once. I’m telling you it’s going to happen again.”

Beyond assessing the condition and inventory of the orphaned wells, finding the funds to either plug the wells or identify a beneficial use of the water -- for oil and gas production or irrigation, for instance -- is another issue.

The Texas Railroad Commission, through its Orphaned Well Plugging Program, administers a fund for plugging old abandoned oil wells.

Yet, though the wells were originally drilled for oil exploration, many of them have since been used for irrigation purposes and have been reclassified as water wells, and RRC funding is limited to wells related to oil and gas production.

“We call the Railroad Commission and they say, ‘Well they’re water wells now because they were given to the landowner.’ So then the landowner is liable,” Edwards said. “But if you make the landowner plug them, they’ll say, ‘We ain’t got a million dollars to plug these wells.’ So what do you do? Where do you get the money?”

Nearly 15 years ago, the issue fell into the hands of Schuyler Wight -- a Pecos County rancher.

In 1987 Wight purchased land in Pecos County near Grandfalls.

Unbeknownst to him the property included a sleeping water well 3,200 feet deep. In 2001, the old well began spewing a column of saltwater from its wellhead. The well also produced quantities of oil and gas from an underlying shale formation, according to a 2002 Livestock Weekly article.

The RRC, by law, was unable to use funds to plug Wight’s problem, and professional oilfield pluggers gave Wight unaffordable estimates for the plugging job. It wasn’t until 2004 that the rancher was finally able to get the well plugged, conceding some of his own funds for the fix, according to Van Deventer.

Wight’s costly experience with the well set an apprehensive tone for other landowners, Van Deventer said.

“Because the land owners, like Wight, end up paying for some of that,” he said. “They’re worried that landowners will be financially viable for plugging the wells if the result of my study-or anybody’s study-is that they should be looked at and plugged.”

His proposal for studying and assessing the numerous wells for the MPGCD, he fears, may be turned down next month when the proposal comes to a vote before the board.

“So that’s what we’re facing here; we’re faced with scared landowners -- scared of the liability that might incur to mitigate that risk these San Andres wells pose,” he said.

And the district has already expressed uncertainty over how they’ll take action.

“I don’t know if the board will do it,” Edwards said. “We’ve already lost 30 percent of the budget this year due to the oil crash -- the whole county has. So I don’t know if they’re going to approve it or not.”

Van Deventer’s tone, however is much more urgent.

“I’ve started using the word ‘environmental disaster’ because there’s a lot of these wells out there,” he said. “I’ve been here in West Texas doing environmental consulting and hydrology for 26 years -- this could be the biggest environmental disaster I’ve seen in that time. I’m going to tell them that they’re just hiding behind the bushes here. This has got to be dealt with.”